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A recap of our February Community Meeting

The Community meeting in February began with Robyn Smyth, an interdisciplinary water scientist, and professor at Bard College. A significant issue discussed was the overuse of road salt. Salt slowly infiltrates into groundwater, and remains in the water for a long time. Thus, the salinity of our drinking water supply can increase over time. Often, extreme caution towards road safety leads to massive amounts of salt being poured on the road. However, many people do not know that at a certain temperature, salt becomes ineffective.

One effective method is to simply reduce the amount of salt used. Moreover, we could use geographic information systems (GIS) to identify groundwater recharge zones, which are areas where the surface water moves down into groundwater. As these zones are extremely sensitive, we could ensure that no salt would be poured there. Another idea is to promote laws and regulation that limit the amount of salt poured on the roads. In our Q&A someone brought up that this is practiced in European countries such as Sweden and Finland. In order to pursue these methods, we must first actively engage and/or facilitate community discussions to bring awareness to the problematic conditions that can arise with the overuse of road salt. For more information on Smyth’s presentation, click here for her powerpoint.

We had updates on two upcoming citizen science projects. The first is the Eel Monitoring project run by the NYDEC. Every spring as American Eels begin their migration into freshwater streams volunteers set up nets to catch, count, weigh, and release the glass eels. We have a net right at the mouth of the Saw Kill and are looking for more volunteers to help once the migration starts near the end of March. Contact Clara Woolner at cwoolner@bard.edu for more information. Another citizen science program is the Amphibian Migration monitoring. Once the temperature has reached the perfect warmth and it has been a little rainy, the salamanders start their migration back to their vernal pools. Volunteers come out to help salamanders cross the road during the evenings so that they can be safe and sound! To find more information please contact Laurie Husted at husted@bard.edu.

The complete meeting minutes are posted here. Our next water sampling event is on April 13. To find more information and/or interest in volunteering, please contact Victoria Choy at vc5769@bard.edu. Hope to see everyone soon!